Astrolux MF01 (S) needs a charging port

OK, I know some people don’t like internal charging, I get that.
But this light, which is really really nice, is a PITA to charge! The batteries run down fast, and you have to unscrew the tail cap, then remove each battery individually.
I also think that in time the springs and posts on the carrier may fail from repeated in and out.
Since this is an 8.4V light, I am guessing it could not be done through USB. (Since the batteries are carried in parallel pairs, maybe that is possible, not an engineer).
But even Chaselight supplies an 8.4V adapter with a $29.99 flashlight! And it easily charges two 26650 4500 Mah batteries to 4.2 volts.
So obviously it CAN be done.
It would be a great convenience on the next upgrade of this light. To be able to top it off after use without disassembly would be worth a few $$ more to me.
Again, I know some folks are going to respond about all the negatives of internal charging.
But the FT03 and BLF SP36 do it with not problems at all. Those are both high drain lights that get topped off after use.

Agree 100% and didn’t even really think to look for that when I ordered the light last night. Very disappointed that I can’t just top it off after using the high drain light. Dang it. Can you cancel orders on Bangood that have not shipped?

@scosgt, there’s a difference between the FT03 and SP36, and that is because the SP36 and FT03 uses a 1S4P arrangement of cells.

The MF01S uses a 2S2P setup. That means you need a much more complex circuit to manage the batteries safely over time.

I’ve had this happen with 26650 lights similar to the Chaselight you bought(not all my friends follow my recommendations), and what happened was that over time, the cells over time got debalanced.

Someone then came to my help because the light didn’t work, and I found one 26650 at 5V, and one at 1V.

TLDR: Get ready to pay 15-20$US more for the light to be charged internally with a compact high quality high current BMS, or take the risk of having cells die over time.

That makes sense.

Ain’t familiar with the MF01S, but any series config, you need to be able to sense the voltage of each individual cell. Forget about matched pairs or “balanced” cells, over even a few cycles they’ll “unbalance” ever so slightly that when charging a set, one cell will still need CC charging and the other will already be at the CV stage.

For 2 cells, you’d need 3 wires. Call them A/B/C. A would be the negative end, C would be the positive end, B the junction at the middle. Cell 1 would be sensed (and ideally charged) from B-A, and cell 2 from C-B.

Just slapping a voltage source across both cells can work fine… for a short time. But they’ll still “unbalance” after a few cycles.

Cells in parallel, doesn’t matter, as they’ll both be charged/discharged at the same rate and left quite happy. So a 2S2P arrangement simplifies to 2S, but only if the middles of both are connected together. Eg, it’d be 2P in series with another 2P.

(Yeah, yeah, 2P or not 2P… ha.)

This is exactly why I didn’t get the MF01S. My Q8 is already a pain in the butt and I almost sold it to get the SP36 (it’s not so mod friendly, unfortunately). Struggling with a battery carrier in such a big power hungry light as the MF01S puts me off.

The original MF01 had a battery carrier anf was a pain to remove the batteries for charging every time. However the current mf01s eliminated yhe battery carrier so all 4 batteries just falls out easily making charging a much lesser chore. Ofcourse having usb c charge would be even better but doubt it will ever happen.

In the design progress of the MF01S was a charge function planned with 1S battery configuration in the tail cap,
but it got dropped by the manufacture team to use the 2S DD design with the rotating back side board, as the charging in Tail would have been a carrier design
Also the 2S drivers were successfully used by HaikeLite, TA and me so this was the design with the least problems to be dealt with

The assembly and parts costs would have increased, more holes in the head to MCPCB to conduct the current to at least 4 solder spots, 2 MOSFETs in parallel, Charging board, an internal post to feed batt+ back to the tail ect.
And most important time played a role as there were enough step backs like the Anduril temperature freak out problem already

As well as the buck driver design from 4S battery to 3S MCPCB got dropped for a simpler driver design